Sins of the Flesh
by Cardboard Tube Knight
Summary: In the future war is just business and business is GOOD. The Doctor, Amy and Rory land in a future where flesh avatars fight proxy wars at the edge of the bountiful and great Earth Empire to find that some things don't change for the better. Some things just get worse.
1. A Good Night

**Prologue**

The console room was dark save for the light from a few of the pore-like holes in the domed ceiling and the ambient light that filtered out from beneath the glass floor. The instruments around the control panel in the center of the room emitted a constant hum. They drowned out the breathing of the figure that lounged on the curved staircase.

As the Doctor ghosted up the steps toward the control panel his white dinner jacket flapped at his sides. It wasn't one of his normal outfits, but tonight wasn't a normal night. His movements were slightly erratic under the haze of a very strong wine he'd brought back from Klom. A brass instrument that looked like a cross between a Tuba and a French horn was tucked under his right arm. The Doctor brought the Sonic Screwdriver around and dunked it into the end of the instrument. When he pressed the button a slight note sounded out through the seemingly empty room.

He slipped the Screwdriver back into his pocket as he reached the console. After pressing a switch and pulling a bobble headed lever, he stepped back to admire his work when a voice broke the silence. "Do you do this every night?"

Startled, the Doctor turned and slipped the euphonium behind his back. Amelia Pond was sitting on the steps in her dressing gown and slippers. Her legs pulled close together so that her elbow could rest atop them and her chin atop her hand. "Oh. Hello," he said shuffling to the side with his hands tucked up to the elbows behind his coat.

"You're trying to conceal a euphonium guiltily. Has that ever been attempted before?" Amy asked.

"What?" the Doctor, seeing that the gig was up, brought the euphonium around front and center. "Oh this. It's one of those euphoniums."

"Okay," Amy said letting the word linger. "So is this what you do at night when we're sleeping? Have extra adventures." There was a slight tiredness in her Scottish drawl. She wasn't up because she wasn't tired. No, there was something on her mind.

A few nights before she had answered a phone and accidentally caught him in a compromising position with a queen who had been turned into a fish and a warlord that had been turned into a fly. Eventually he would have to sort Amy Pond out. The success of his nighttime escapades depended on it.

The Doctor averted his eyes. "I don't sleep as much so sure I keep busy," he glanced up and caught her gaze, crossing his arms as he did.

"Doing what? Actually tell me for once," Amy paused. "You're my friend, my best friend, so tell me what it is you do."

With a slightly smug smile and an indignant tilt to his head the Doctor stared at her. "Okay. I just helped out a possessed orchestra on a moon based. Before that I prevented two supernovas, wrote a history of the universe, all in jokes, and did a bit of local work in Brixton. Lovely practice; very short staffed." The hum of the TARDIS engines and the instruments on the console filled in the silence that followed. Now was his chance.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

Amy rose, smoothing the bottom of her night dress down as she did. "We're all such tiny parts of your life, aren't we?" She started down the steps toward him. "All the friends you make are just a flicker in the night. You must hardly notice us."

"Amy," he said as she came to lean on the console next to him. He turned to face her, his ancient eyes brimming with compassion. "You are enormous parts of my life. And _you_ are all I ever remember."

"Speaking of which, my life doesn't make any sense."

"I know."

"That's what I've been trying to talk to you about."

"I know."

Amy straightened her back to bring her eyes level with his. "Like, when I first met you I didn't have parents; I never had parents. And then you did whatever it was you did and rebooted the universe and suddenly I had parents. I've always had parents." Her tone became more frantic. "And I remember both lives in my head, both of them in my head at the same time."

"And it's fine, isn't it?"

"And I shouldn't be," Amy said shaking her head slightly. "Why is it fine?"

The boom of the Doctor's voice surprised even him. "Rory was a Roman for two thousand years."

"He says he hardly remembers it," Amy said dismissively.

"Ah," the Doctor raised his index finger up and tapped the cadence of the next sentence out. "But sometimes you catch him just staring. The thing is Amy, everyone's memory is a mess; life is a mess. Everyone's got memories of a holiday they couldn't have been on or a party they never went to. Or met someone for the first time and felt like they've known them all their lives. Time is being rewritten all around us, every day. People think their memories are bad, but their memories are fine. The past is really like that."

"That's ridiculous," Amy said.

"Yeah," the Doctor smiled, "Now you're starting to get it." He clapped his hands as he crossed around in front of her to the other side of the console. "Put your hand here," he touched a small flat area of the dash.

"What is it?"

"The TARDIS telepathic circuits." He didn't want to tell her that this was the same area that they had interacted with before, back when spores made them believe they were living a life made of two dreams, back when she chose Rory.

"What do I do?" Amy placed her hand down on the spot as she had been instructed to do.

"Nothing. Just relax." He buzzed about the control panel flicking switches and touching levers. He came to a stop in front of a view screen. "Your saddest ever memory was at a fairground in 1994. Can you remember why?"

The time rotor began to pump up and down at the center of the TARDIS console and the rumbled as it started a journey through the vortex.

"No." She held her eyes closed in thought. "Hold on, did I drop an ice cream? That can't be my saddest memory."

"Remembering ice cream's always sad," the Doctor said in a profound, matter-of-a-fact tone.

The TARDIS shifted and a small jolt rocked the control room. "Did we just land?" asked Amy. The Doctor let out a strained laugh in reply. "Where are we?"

"What happened after you dropped the ice cream?" he asked.

"Nothing. I-I cried," she said. The Doctor nodded as if to say go on. "No, hang on there was a lady and she brought me another one."

"Oh, good for her. What did she look like?"

"She looked like she—she had a funny dress. A night dress. She had red hair. Doctor? I don't understand."

By the time the revelation had hit her, the Doctor was already by the door. She turned back to see him standing with his hand on the knob.

"Why are you doing this? What's the point?" she asked.

"The nice lady, what did she say to you?"

"Cheer up, have an ice cream," Amy's words were tinted with frustration.

"Amy, time and space is never ever going to make any kind of sense. A long time ago you got the best possible advice on how to deal with that. So, I suggest you go and give it," he pulled the double doors of the TARDIS open wide. There was a fairground in the distance. The sound of laughing children and jovial music filled the air.

Amelia walked towards him. "Okay, okay, so I ask a big important question about life and you're basically telling me to go and buy myself ice cream?"

The Doctor threw his arm around her. "No Amy, I'm telling you to go and buy us both ice creams. I love fairgrounds."

She glared over at him, fighting a smile. "I hate you."

"No you don't." He led her out of the TARDIS. "Do you get a bit scared on ghost trains? I get a bit scared. So is it okay if I hold your hand?"

The doors shut behind them and their voices died in the distance as they left the spacecraft that to any outside observer would have been nothing more than an average relic of a police phone box. This effect was enhanced by the phone that began to ring steadily inside. The ringing carried on unanswered for another few minutes and then stopped abruptly.


	2. The Future

**Chapter One**

Cantrell's avatar gasped under the weight of the sinewy man's grip. His hands had closed around her – its – throat hard enough now that the sync had been broken. It was the safety precaution built into most ganger rigs and while her clientele preferred it if they could feel the flesh avatar gasp and struggle while they did whatever they wanted, she preferred not to be choked again today.

This client hadn't given a name. Paid in bearer credits, though she didn't care if they paid in Spanish bullion as long as they did. Most clients gave fake names; they had to avoid being found out by spouses. Then there was the spread of the Church's influence and how they worried about what the heathens on the outer rim did. But there was something about how this guy didn't give a name, how he moved like a possessed shadow despite being pale white to the point of translucence.

She had caught a hint of his eyes when he first entered. Beautiful pale blue, but with the red tint of cybernetic add-ons. Though she wondered if he was recording this, she didn't dare to ask. And as she watched from the chair next to her rig-box she was glad that she hadn't. The man's slender nude form was poised over the ganger expertly, as if he half-expected the limp, helpless form to fight back. The avatar had gone blue in the face and choked for air, but he didn't stop pressing at the neck.

Cantrell wondered if he had bothered to realize that she had broken the sync. She could still feel the ghost of the pain in her neck. The proverbial "they" claimed that ganger sync snapped the moment that pain begin. Operators weren't able to feel even the slightest hint if the safeties were set to optimal. She swore something of the feeling made it through. Watching a perfect, nude duplicate of herself be choked to death shouldn't have bothered her as much as it did, but she couldn't help feel that in some of these cases it would have been her neck if it could have.

This was one of those.

The client grasped a light fixture that jutted out of the wall, using it as a handhold to pull himself up further onto his knees. His hands were purple with the stress from squeezing, almost as purple as the ganger's lifeless face. He drank the air with shuddering breaths. "These gangers break down after death?"

It was very unusual to refer to a ganger as dead. "They decompose the same as a human body."

"You're not lying to me? It's not going to go unstable? Is it?" Though he didn't raise his voice he seemed to demand an answer.

Cantrell would have normally been somewhat offended. "I only use the best. These things ain't cheap. They have to be broken down in a vat," she pointed to the back of the flat at a shut door. "Otherwise there's no difference between them and human bodies."

The client seemed to finally be catching up with his breathing. "Good." He began to reposition the body on the scant bed. "How long would you give me alone with her for a thousand more credits?"

_This is new. _The way he said the word _her_ made Cantrell shiver. She didn't know that anything had made her feel like this in decades. The negotiator in her took over. "Two thousand for half an hour." The figure was just something thrown together to be tossed out there.

"Fifteen minutes then?" The client glanced down at the ganger. "Should be enough."

Cantrell walked briskly out of the room to wait at the end of the hallway. She didn't want to hear any part of what this client might be doing in that room.

* * *

Susan smiled over her shoulder at Amy and Sarah as they walked. Her dark bob-styled haircut formed a perfect frame around her face. "Come on, Pond. You're the one holding us up," she said, spinning so that the shopping bags fanned out around her like a carnival's swing carousel. "Don't you want to stop in and pick up something for Rory to play with?"

Amy expected this. The pair of them tried to get her to talk about her marriage. They thought there was something wrong that could be fixed by over-priced lingerie or scented body balm. Truth be told, she and Rory were never happier. She had just learned to stop being so vocal about it. Her friends read it the wrong way.

"Whatever. Rory doesn't need any new toys. He's got her to play with," Sarah answered before Amy could reply.

"Still we should stop in," Susan parked herself at the corner of Bond street and directly in front of the door to the Victoria's Secret.

Amy looked at the big window sticker plastered to the door. "Ugh, there's even a sale on," she muttered. Yet another reason why she hadn't wanted to pass this way.

Susan and Sarah were already dragging her through the doors. They filed up and down the various aisles trying different fragrances and comparing the shades of nail polish.

"If you want we could catch a movie tonight," Susan said. "Just drop the bags off back at mine and head to the cinema?"

Amy nodded. "It'll be good to have some time out. Rory's been busy lately and I'm getting tired of being in that flat all alone."

"What movie did you have in mind?" asked Sarah.

"Whatever's playing." Susan had a bottle of fragrance that she had transported from the other side of the store while she tried to decide whether to buy it or not. She sprayed another burst, by Amy's count the fifth, and sniffed the air.

"Doesn't matter," Amy said.

Sarah grimaced. "I don't like going round to the cinema without some sort of plan, especially with you lot. You're liable to switch your minds after we buy the tickets."

"Fine, let's see what's playing," said Susan with a sigh.

At the other end of the shop Amy spotted a cute, lacey piece of lingerie. "I'm going to take a look at something. Any movie you pick's fine," she said as she started toward the other end of the store.

"Okay, but just make sure that you're back in time for us to get that _Amy Pond discount_," Susan pointed up at an advertisement that was a picture of Amy with her eyes slathered in thick eye shadow. Amy didn't even remember modeling for a Victoria Secret shoot.

"I'll be down here," Amy continued to walk to the apparel end of the store. The outfit that she had seen, if it could be called an outfit, was a top and bottom set that was pink with black lace that had little black bows dotting it every so often. She rolled the fabric between her fingers.

"Need any help ma'am?" asked an Indian girl whose tropical fruit body spray Amy smelled before she even spoke.

Amy turned. "No. No, thanks."

The girl smiled. "You look a bit familiar—oh my God. Are you…"

Amy cut her off. "…the girl from the adverts all over the store? Yeah."

"No. Not that," the girl pulled out a smart phone wrapped in a cute pink rubbery case and flicked back through a few things before handing it to Amy.

Her first thought was that the phone case felt like the awful fake skin on those male masturbatory aids that her friend Polly couldn't stop laughing at in the sex shop. Then she saw the picture on the screen and froze. "I'm going to kill him," she said.

"Who is that guy?" asked the girl.

On the phone's LED display was a picture of the Doctor in a black and white photo between Lenin and Stalin, despite the other occupants of the photo the Doctor was smiling far too big and holding up a painting in front of himself that looked exactly like Amy. There was something scribbled below it in that strange Russian writing.

"What?" Amy asked after the picture's spell over her had broken. She had let the pause go on far too long for it not to be eerie. "Oh, I don't know him. This had to have been taken like a thousand years ago."

The shop girl smirked. "Yeah, my teacher pointed it out and I saved it because the whole picture just seemed so out of place, there's a word for it…"

"Anachronistic," Amy muttered. She was wondering if she could choke the Doctor out when she next saw him. She seemed to remember him saying that Regeneration was impossible then.

"Yeah, that's it."

"Would you mind if I texted this to myself?" Amy asked holding the phone up.

"Of course not. I would. It looks so much like you."

Amy shook her head. "Yeah, wait till my husband sees…" her voice trailed off. She sent the picture to her mobile and then turned back to the outfit that had drawn her interest earlier. Her friends were still down the aisle arguing over the choice of movies. "Are the dressing rooms locked?"

"No ma'am, go right ahead."

Amy carted the lingerie off to try it on. She worried that it was too big, but any excuse to put distance between herself and the situation with the sales lady was welcome. She closed the door to the handicapped dressing room. It was more spacious than she expected. Amy might go as far as to say it was slightly luxurious.

She slung her purse over one of the hooks that jutted out of the wall and began to strip out of her clothes. She stood in front of the mirror looking herself over with the little lingerie piece held up over her body like the clothes on a paper doll.

The mirror on the wall started to vibrate. At first Amy wasn't sure she had really seen it move at all. Then it became more noticeable and there was a slight wind in the room that caused her tiny clutch purse to sway. She turned to look at the furthest wall and that was when the distinct, melancholy wail of the TARDIS engines filled the room.

"I am going to kill him…" Amy repeated.

The TARDIS materialized with barely enough room for her to move. The doors swung inward and the Doctor was standing in the golden light of the ship in a navy cashmere coat that she couldn't remember him wearing before. "Did you miss—me?" The Doctor slapped his hand over his eyes. "Where are you clothes?" he whispered.

"You surprised me in the dressing room at a lingerie store. Where do you think my clothes are?" she said.

"Ma'am? Is everything okay in there?" came the voice of the sales girl.

"Yes. I'm fine." Amy turned back to the Doctor. "How did you find me here?" she whispered.

"Locked onto you with the TARDIS and she took me directly to your position," the Doctor peeked out between a gap that opened in his fingers.

"Maybe you should Google Map locations before you just pop in like that," Amy slapped his hands away from his face. "You've seen me in a bikini before, Raggedy Man. This isn't any different."

The Doctor nodded. "So I have. Grab your clothes, but leave the lacey-things. We're going for Rory."

"Doctor, Rory is busy with a test and I can't just run off with you and leave my friends here," she said. Even as she spoke the words she already knew what would happen. "Okay, have me back in this spot a minute from now. But we can't bother Rory. One quick trip and then we're right back here," she said.

"Rory is part of this too," the Doctor said as he stepped out of the doorway. Amy walked into the TARDIS with the bundle of her clothes. "I'll bring you both back within the relative hour."

The TARDIS looked just as Amy had remembered it. This place had been home once and she still felt drawn to it, her old life. The Doctor closed the doors and rushed up to the console. "Now then," he threw a lever and the TARDIS dematerialized. When the engines stopped this time Rory was standing in the center of the control room eating a sandwich. He wore a pair of ear bud headphones and was bobbing his head.

He realized a moment later where he was and ripped the ear buds free. "Doctor?" he said with his mouth full of bread.

"Rory the Roman!" the Doctor approached him wide armed. The Doctor slapped his back three times.

"Amy, where are your clothes?" Rory asked.

The Doctor was already throwing the levers on the hexagonal console. "Plucked her out of the Bond Street Victoria Secret dressing room. She was looking at lacey things…" he seemed preoccupied with the TARDIS controls as he spoke.

Rory turned around perhaps a little too excited. "Did you get anything?"

"Doctor nabbed me before I could pay for it," Amy said.

"Oh, I could take you back to meet Roy Raymond himself and have him fit you for a fashion show," the Doctor said still working the controls.

"Who's Roy Raymond?" whispered Rory too loudly.

"Victoria Secret founder. Committed Suicide in 1993 in San Francisco…no that's not the happiest story for sexy-lingerie-couple-time. Forget I said anything." There was silence for a few moments. "Don't act so surprised Pond, I sent you a message. The shop girl."

"You mean the picture? With Lenin and Stalin?" Amy asked.

"Of course," the Doctor said.

Amy pulled out her phone and showed her. "This message is in Russian!"

The Doctor seemed disappointed. "I sometimes do that."

"Write in Russian?" Rory shook his head as if to clear the thought out. "Doctor, where are we going?"

"To the future Rory. Haven't you been paying attention?"

"Yeah. You didn't say anything."

The Doctor glanced at him. "Well I was about to. We're going to the future, Rory."

Rory took another bite of his sandwich. "Okay then."

Amy dropped her shoes out of the bundle of clothes. "I better get dressed. There's no telling if we're going to be landing or crashing. Might need to run if there's fire."


End file.
